


Threads

by Sparkleymask



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 07:04:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8134733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparkleymask/pseuds/Sparkleymask
Summary: A quiet moment in Skyhold's chantry.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earlymorningechoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlymorningechoes/gifts).



Andraste was only partially visible in the darkness, the few lit candles enough to highlight the lower half of her and little more. The faint glow of moonlight from the garden barely made it past the doorway, and was blocked entirely when Josephine came to stand there.

Her search had not been a long one: after Leliana’s room and the rookery were found to be empty, this had been the next obvious place to look. Never during the day, of course: but sometimes when it was this late, when the garden was empty and there were few enough people roaming the halls that a careful person could make their way through them without being detected.

She wasn’t praying, when Josephine found her. Or at least, she was not on her knees. Instead she sat amongst the crowd of unlit candles, one leg tucked beneath her and the other stretched out, her weight propped up on one hand and her back to the door. Her head was covered by her cloak. A precaution, even here, against being easily recognised.

Josephine didn’t announce her presence. She didn’t need to. Even if she had been trying to hide her approach, Leliana would have known she was there.

Still, she came into the room quietly. The hour, and the holiness of the place, seemed to demand it. 

“I thought you had gone to bed,” said Leliana, without turning round. 

Josephine could hear the tremor of recent tears clinging to the words, though Leliana had done well to disguise it. “I wanted to say goodnight.”

Leliana snuffled a half-hearted laugh. She sat upright and brought her hands to her face, still hidden from Josephine’s sight. After a moment she lowered them, folding them in her lap. “Do so, then.”

Josephine reached out, resting her fingers gently around Leliana’s shoulder. Immediately, Leliana slumped beneath her hand, as if it was all she could do not to curl in on herself. 

“Oh,” said Josephine, softly. That Leliana was upset, she had guessed; that it would take so little to make her show it was a shock. 

She took a step closer and Leliana leaned into her, shoulder pressed against the front of Josephine’s thigh, head against her stomach. She wanted to push the hood back but resisted, instead cradling Leliana’s head through it. Her thumb stroked along the heavy fabric in a soothing rhythm, though no doubt too lightly for Leliana to feel it. 

Her movements were cautious. She couldn’t help it: she had never managed to emulate Leliana’s physical ease, though in years past she had tried. Oh, she could charm, she could convince – she knew her strengths – but her touches were mannered, calculated, where she suspected Leliana’s were always instinctive.

There should have been no need to be so careful. Leliana craved touch, more than anyone else Josephine had known. She thought about the nights Leliana had slipped into bed next to her, how she curled against Josephine’s side in the narrow space, and clasped her hand in the dark. 

They had never spoken about it. It was not that she doubted Leliana’s feelings for her; she knew her well enough to know that she cared, deeply, despite the reputation she had sought to build. She was simply worried that if she mentioned it, Leliana would stop. And she was not convinced that, outside of those nights, Leliana was sleeping at all.

So now, she was cautious. 

“Were you praying?”

Leliana didn’t answer immediately. It was quiet enough in that little room for Josephine to hear her breathing, soft and even. “I was…thinking,” she said eventually. “About Justinia.”

Josephine waited. Her thumb rasped against the fabric of the hood with each slow stroke.

“About myself.”

“You are allowed to miss her.” It was an obvious statement, she realised, maybe even trite. But even so she wondered if Leliana needed reminding of it. It had been over a year now, and it would not have surprised her if Leliana saw her continued mourning as a weakness.

A sharp exhale, too harsh to be a sigh. “Am I allowed to be glad she is gone?”

Josephine stilled. For the first time, Leliana looked up at her. Josephine could see the her eyes were red-rimmed, even in the low light, though any tears had dried or been wiped away. Leliana held her gaze, a flicker of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Are you judging me, Josie?”

_Never_ , she wanted to say, though it would not have been quite truthful. “More favourably than you judge yourself, I suspect.”

Leliana smiled properly at that. She tipped her head back further, raising her eyes to the darkness that shrouded Andraste’s face. There was perhaps a hint of it visible, Josephine thought, following her gaze. The furthest reaches of candlelight catching the curve of a lip, the edge of an eyelid.

“She released me, you know.”

“Yes.” The Inquisitor had told her as much, though now she was unsure whether he had done so with Leliana’s permission – whether he even felt he needed her permission. 

“And once before.” This little more than a murmur, so that Josephine wasn’t sure if she was meant to respond.

She knew little of Leliana’s life before they met. What she did know – that she had trained as a bard in Orlais, that she had travelled with the Hero of Ferelden – she had learned mainly from what Leliana had chosen to tell her, tales of adventure that would entrance anyone, let alone a slightly starry-eyed twenty-year-old. Yet she had also known, even then, that these were just tales. The truth, she believed, but only part of it. 

She did not know who Leliana had been. But she suspected it was someone quite different.

“I do miss her.”

Unexpectedly, Josephine felt a lump form in her throat. She swallowed it away, and pressed her palm firmly against Leliana’s head, keeping her close. “Of course you do.”

“But it is…”

_A relief_ , she thought Leliana might say. She realised she wanted her to. Then Josephine would hold her tightly, and Leliana would know that she thought no less of her for admitting it.

Leliana sighed, heavily, and some of tension in her seemed to drain out with it. “Good to be free.”

Josephine slid the hood back from Leliana’s head. She ran her fingers lightly through her hair, just once, tenderly straightening the mussed strands. She cradled her head again – only now she could feel the warmth of her, against her palm, and where the side of her face pressed against her stomach, heavy and comforting.

It was not her place to be comforted, she thought, but she felt it all the same.

Leliana wrapped her arm around Josephine’s legs, keeping her close. She sighed again, and Josephine could feel it where they were pressed close, the fill and release of her lungs against her. 

“I never have to lie to you,” she said.

That was a lie in itself, Josephine thought, without resentment. But perhaps, in the future Leliana was choosing for herself, it was meant as a promise.


End file.
